Historical Homes

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Miss Nightingale's Nurses by Kate Eastham, read by Dorothy Lawrence. Liverpool 1855. Ada Houston is alone. Her grandfather has recently passed away and her brother is missing, last seen working on the Liverpool docks. Everyone assumes him to be dead. But...

An irresistible comedy of manners about three generations of a Chicago restaurant family and the deep-fried, beer-battered, cream cheese-frosted love that feeds them all—from the best-selling author of Girls in White Dresses “Laugh-out-loud funny, and deeply resonant to our times. I was...

“Bold, daring, graceful, and engrossing.” —Bobbie Ann Mason “This book will knock your socks off….A first novel that sings with talent.” —Clyde Edgerton In his phenomenal debut novel—a mesmerizing literary thriller about the bond between two brothers and the evil they face in a...

Francis Joseph Cassavant is eighteen. He has just returned home from the Second World War, and he has no face. He does have a gun and a mission: to murder his childhood hero. Francis lost most of his face when he fell on a grenade in France. He received the Silver Star for bravery, but was it really an act of heroism? Now, having survived, he is looking for a man he once admired and respected, a man adored by many people, a man who also received a Silver Star for bravery. A man who destroyed Francis's life.

When Daisy, a paintress at the local pottery, looks out across Poole Harbour, waiting for the ‘little ships’ to bring the retreating soldiers home from Dunkirk, she prays her husband will be among them. But Alfie is declared missing, presumed dead, and Daisy must learn to live as a widow. Then a chance encounter with a French soldier throws Daisy’s life even further off course, with heartbreaking consequences that will span generations.

'Fast-paced and exciting. This is Chinn's first foray into Tudor fiction, and I hope it won't be her last. An ideal read for fans of Philippa Gregory and Joanna Courtney' Historical Novel Society The most famous necklace in the world has finally been found… Bryher Finch’s life isn’t just a...

In 1895, a Northumbrian island welcomes two new residents. Clara and Jimmy are born on the same night, to families poles apart. Clara is an islander through and through; content to live among the rhythms and barren beauty of Holy Island. Jimmy's future is set in stone; fishing with the father he despises on the family boat. When tragedy forces them from their island and each other, they join the herring season in a bid to survive. Jimmy strikes out for Seahouses, where he joins a Scots herring crew.

Irene Bobs loves fast driving. Her husband is the best car salesman in southeastern Australia. Together they enter the Redex Trial, a brutal race around the ancient continent, over roads no car will ever quite survive. With them is their lanky, fair-haired navigator, Willie Bachhuber, a quiz show champion and failed schoolteacher who calls the turns and creeks crossings on a map that will remove them, without warning, from the white Australia they all know so well. This is a thrilling high-speed story that starts in one way and then takes you someplace else. It is often funny, more so as the world gets stranger, and always compelling, even as you learn a history these characters never knew themselves.

In Victorian-era Louisville, the Home for Friendless Women is run by benevolent benefactors with one mission: to reform the fallen women who live there into pious mothers and wives through religious lessons and hard work. For Ruth, a college student who’s expelled after a campus sexual assault...

In the spring of 1972, Joyce Maynard, a freshman at Yale, published a cover story in The New York Times Magazine about life in the sixties. Among the many letters of praise, offers for writing assignments, and request for interviews was a one-page letter from the famously reclusive author, J.D. Salinger. At Home in the World is the story of a girl who loved and lived with J.D. Salinger, and the woman she became. A crucial turning point in Joyce Maynard's life occurred when her own daughter turned eighteen--the age Maynard was when Salinger first approached her.

A thrilling memoir from the first American woman to race a sailboat solo, nonstop around the world, pushed to the limits to find her strength. When Cole Brauer sets out at age twenty-nine to become the first American woman to race solo around the world (at five feet tall, no less), she is...

Graeme MacQuillan knows the witch from his time purposefully sent him forward to another century, though he isn’t exactly sure why. He strong-arms the first person he meets into helping him find his way home—without telling her the hardly credible truth, that he’s from the 14th century. The bonny lass is justly terrified but helping is in her nature so even though she thinks he’s daft, she’s soon introducing him to all the astonishing sights and sounds of the 21st century.

On the Camino de Santiago, Etienne and his companions must save Sister Fransie’s friends and reunite all seven of the keys that unlock the Templars’ greatest treasure. As they attempt to do this, they are stalked by the most powerful of the Seven Deadly Sins, who wants the keys for itself. Now, Etienne and his companions must use all the wisdom they have learned on the Camino to defeat this foe and unlock the Templars' greatest treasure. But, the question is, should they? Does a fate worse than the seven deadly sins lie in wait?

A collection of quick morning and evening prayers that will enrich your commitment to God and personal connection to the Christian tradition and the entire church. A Morning and Evening Prayerbook provides a framework for prayerful devotions with two prayers for each day of the year. The morning...

Recapture the summer sunshine this autumn with the Sunday Times bestseller that readers are calling ‘captivating’ and ‘a treasure of a read’… Love grows where you least expect it… July 1981. As the country prepares to celebrate Prince Charles’ wedding to Lady Diana, Libby flees...

The African sun beats down on Salisbury as Livy Johnston, an up-and-coming artist, steps into a world of colonial propriety and unspoken rules. After a shipboard romance with wealthy widower Crispin Dane, she is forced to face the reality of her hastily arranged future with Jeremy Crookshank, a struggling farm assistant with dreams of his own tobacco fields.

Scotland, 1942. The Lumberjills, the newest recruits in the Women’s Timber Corps, arrive in the Scottish Highlands to a hostile reception from doubtful locals. The young women are determined to prove them wrong and serve their country – but they’re also all looking for something more. Can the Lumberjills get through their struggles together – even when tragedy strikes?

Twenty-six-year-old Katie Macauley has placed all her hope in Hope Springs, a small town in the 1870 Wyoming Territory. But if she wants to return home to Ireland to make amends with her estranged family, she’ll need to convince the influential Joseph Archer to hold true to his word and keep her on his payroll as his housekeeper - despite her Irish roots. When Joseph agrees to keep Katie on ash is housekeeper, the feud erupts anew, and Katie becomes the reluctant figurehead for the Irish townsfolk.

"The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass." So begins The Monsters of Templeton, a novel spanning two centuries: part a contemporary story of a girl's search for her father, part historical novel, and part ghost story...

'These heartbreaking but also inspirational tales are full of the grit and hardship that have become hallmarks of a storyteller who writes straight from the heart.' - Lancashire Evening Post Heartfelt and moving, The Orphanage Girls Come Home is the beautiful conclusion to the Orphanage Girls...